AS a 42-year-old single woman, I’m so proud of Leigh.

It is a delightful and pretty town formerly in Lancashire but now part of Greater Manchester, which is a metropolitan and England’s newest county.

But lots of Leigh’s residents still believe it is in Lancashire and will not accept it is part of Greater Manchester, which was created in 1974.

Leigh has an elegant, oldfashioned town hall, many independent shops, several good pubs, nice cafés, old-fashioned houses, a small museum, historic monuments and fine old houses.

I am an enormous fan of Tom Burke, a late world famous tenor with a very powerful voice who was born and raised in Leigh.

He was occasionally billed as Thomas Burke and was often featured on Pathe-Fox cinema newsreels advertising where you could see him in concert.

He was known as The Lancashire Troubadour or The Forgotten Tenor, a title shared by other British forgotten tenors such as Walter Glynn, Walter Widdop, Barrington Hooper, Frank Titterton, Albert Piccaver, Trefor Jones, Josef Schmidt, Robert Wilson, John McHugh, Jan Krupa, Heddle Nash, Jussi Bjordling, Yosef Skekens, Joseph Hislop, Danny Malone and Cavan O’Connor, who in fact wasn’t Irish at all but an Englishman from Nottinghamshire.

And not forgetting Robert Naylor, the greatest tenor who ever lived, as voted by a majority in a national magazine.

I am looking for old Tom Burke LPs and a Dansette record player to play them on.

If anyone can help please get in touch with me via the Journal.

I would also like to hear from any fellow fans of Tom Burke who would like to be pen pals.

Dorrinda-May Butlin-Pritchard

Bradford